1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to brushes uses for cleaning and scrubbing tasks and, more particularly, to brushes used for certain automotive cleaning tasks.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Brushes are essential equipment for many cleaning operations. This is particularly true of automotive cleaning operations, where a variety of brushes are utilized for the various tasks involved in cleaning a vehicle. Automatic vehicle cleaning equipment generally utilizes specialized brushes for cleaning certain vehicle components, such as tires, which have high resistance to abrasion and scratching. Painted surfaces are much more delicate and must be treated with greater care to avoid damage from scratching and abrasion during cleaning. Harsh cleaning compounds and coarse brushes can rapidly abrade painted finishes. Even polishing operations, which are often used to restore the luster of certain easily oxidized paints, can completely erode the color coat in less than a dozen such operations.
It is generally acknowledged within the automotive paint products industry that directives promulgated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have had a deleterious effect on the quality of automotive finishes. Within the past decade or so, they have become generally less durable and more susceptible to damage from the sun and the elements. In an effort to reduce the amounts of solvents that were being introduced into the atmosphere, automobile manufactures began to use water-based primer paints somewhat more than a decade ago with what could be fairly characterized as disastrous results. Because of the relative inferiority of modern automotive paints, not only is it essential that automobiles be keep clean on a regular basis in order to remove damaging chemicals from the painted surfaces, it is also important to treat those surfaces with particular care to avoid mechanical damage from the cleaning process. Because of these factors, modern automotive cleaning equipment should be tailored to the task.
Despite the existence of automatic car wash equipment in most major metropolitan areas, some individuals still insist on manually washing their vehicles. In addition, there are many smaller towns which will probably never have the luxury of an automatic car wash. Consequently, there will always be a need for manual car washing equipment, such as specialized brushes, chamoises, and the like.
U.S. Pat. No. D 369,906 to Jim Henrie discloses a cleaning brush for tires having a face of bristles with an inner cylindrical profile. The bristles generally conform to the profile of a tire sidewall so that they may be more evenly and quickly cleaned. Although relatively effective, use of the brush requires that the user kneel or stoop to the level of the tire. Another scrub brush having a curved bristle face is shown in U.S. Pat. No. D 235,592.
What is needed is a multi-purpose scrub brush optimized for certain manual automotive cleaning tasks, including the cleaning of tires, which does not require the user to kneel or stoop to perform the task.
A cleaning brush suitable for use in connection with automotive cleaning tasks, incorporates back-to-back bristle heads at one end of an elongated handle. One of the bristle heads features a concave, or dished, face; the other bristle head has a planar face. The concave brush head is intended for use on tires, and as such, is fabricated from fewer, coarser bristles than is the planar brush head, which is intended for use on wheels and painted body parts. The free ends of the bristles of the planar head may be abraded or frayed to increase their softness and reduce their abrasiveness. For a preferred embodiment of the invention, the handle is about 61 cm (24 inches) in length, and includes an elongated portion of square cross section. The handle is rigidly attached to a flattened, largely disk-shaped back in which bristles of both heads are imbedded. Optionally, the handle at the end opposite the disk-shaped back includes an aperture which may be used to hand the brush on a hook. For a preferred embodiment of the invention, the handle and back are injection molded as a single unit from structural polymeric plastic material, such as nylon, polyester, acrylic, polycarbonate, or polystyrene. The plastic material may incorporate strength-enhancing glass or carbon fibers. The bristles for both brush heads are preferably made from a polymeric material such as nylon, polyester, or polypropylene, although the use of natural bristles is also contemplated.